


Masks

by Markovia



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Implied Shizuo/Izaya, M/M, Manipulation, Violence, bed time, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:32:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Markovia/pseuds/Markovia
Summary: Izaya has always been exceptionally good at lying. He’s worn so many masks that he barely recognises his own face in the mirror anymore.





	Masks

**Author's Note:**

> Just a weird little Drabble to get my head in the game today. Hope you enjoy.

Izaya has always been exceptionally good at lying. He’s worn so many masks that he barely recognises his own face in the mirror anymore. When he does see if, often during the early hours of the morning in his bathroom mirror, he doesn’t know if he likes it. His mask is handsome, pulled intentionally off-centre by an easy lopsided smile that he knows people warm to. He’s learned to feed the right level of emotion into his eyes depending on the situation. But his real face is something different. It’s ugly. 

 

The brunet leaned forward over the sink so that his face was illuminated by the light above the mirror and he began to inspect his features carefully. It was always the same - eyes, though sharp, were devoid of any human emotion, simply flat burgundy circles embedded in his sockets. There was no trace of joviality around his mouth, his lips were simply set in a hard line. When the man tried to smile, to honestly smile, he found himself unable to bring his lips into anything but a nasty smirk. The smirk caused his eyes to light up unpleasantly, almost manically. 

 

Keeping up with his lies was easy, though playing face was somewhat exhausting when you had been doing it as long as Izaya had. The smirk dropped back into an emotionless line and he turned on his heel, switching off the bathroom light as he headed for his bedroom. As he slipped beneath the expensive sheets he rarely slept within, he thought of Mikado. What face would he have to show in front of him - kind, caring older man seemed the most apt. Wise, thoughtful, but willing to let the younger boy make his own mistakes. Mistakes that Izaya would set up for him to fall for, of course. Yes, that would do nicely, Izaya was more than capable of pulling that off. There was some shred of real interest toward Mikado, some actual feeling that he could use to lace his lies with a little truth. 

 

There were few people he had revealed his true nature to - in fact, there were only three. The first was Masaomi Kida. The young gang-leader was used to wearing masks himself and he had been around Izaya so long that it didn’t serve the informant to hide his unpleasantness from him. For the uproar Kida caused in his younger years with the Yellow Scarves, quite frankly Izaya thought the boy deserved to deal with his antagonistic nature. He made every effort to make Kida’s life more difficult, well aware of the fact that he would never hurt him due to the residual guilt over what happened with Saki and his general fear of what the informant might do. Denying information, forcing him to do irritating, repetitive tasks, taunting him with offers that Izaya would always end up refusing - he didn’t care what it was as long as it made the boy suffer. The informant made it quite clear that he was in charge, that he was free whilst Kida was tethered to him. Let the boy hate him, he thought, let him envy the freedom Izaya had and seethe with anger in silence.

 

The second was a more recent development. Namie Yagiri was an odd woman, one he found himself rather liking. It was most likely due to their similarities, their shared snark, intellect and ruthlessness. She despised him, that much was obvious and to be expected, he did assist in the downfall of her company, after all.  The woman was a good secretary, she was attentive and reliable and smart but there were moments when he wanted to throw her out of the window. Izaya’s smirk descended into a scowl and he fisted the sheets tightly between his fingers. She was too clever for her own good, she saw through his actions and made note of his weaknesses so she could exploit them for her own amusement. But  _ that  _ was his speciality, something even Namie couldn’t best him in. The brunet’s lip curled in a sneer. He couldn’t help showing his real face in those moments. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hide how much he loved being cruel. He remembered the way Namie’s smirk dropped when he started talking about her brother’s upcoming marriage, the way she stormed out of the office that night with tears in her eyes. 

 

The third was Shizuo, a man who’d never been dishonest about his true face a day in his life. The brunet turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He spread his arms out wide and let them fall against the mattress as he thought on his former classmate. The monster was quite something, possibly the only opponent Izaya had faced who truly challenged him. Shizuo was truly unpredictable, as wild and manic as a rabid dog and twice as blood-thirsty. He didn’t care about Izaya’s real face, in fact he seemed to see through his mask from the moment they were introduced. ‘ _ You piss me off’. _ It was that unpredictability that caught Izaya’s eye all those years ago and held it well into their twenties. Shizuo was nothing if not thrilling. Izaya sighed and stretched out so that his hips flexed down into the bed. Their relationship was an odd one, built on ‘ _ I hate you’  _ and ‘ _ I want to kill you’  _ and  _ ‘I want to fuck you’  _ \- though that last one was probably one-sided, Izaya wasn’t completely sure. Namie had once snidely asked him why he was so obsessed with the blond. Why, if he hated him like he proclaimed, didn’t he just stay out of his way. Izaya couldn’t answer that one, so he just threw a book at her head. 

 

Izaya closed his eyes again and rolled over onto his side, hugging the spare pillow close to his chest. When his plans came to fruition, when this business with the Dollars and the Dullahan was all over - what then? He had little doubt that he would achieve his endeavours, so it was worth thinking on the future. Perhaps he could leave Japan, go start another life somewhere as a better person. Perhaps he could stay and turn his obsession with Shizuo into something else. He curled around the pillow, clutching it tighter to his torso. 

 

Fanciful dreams, he thought, impractical. No, he was much more likely to start a war. Chaos, utter chaos, that was what he wanted. He wanted to see them all crash and burn until he rose to the top, the Valkyrie’s warrior. Master of all he cared to conquer. Izaya smiled and pressed his face into the sweet-smelling material of the pillow. He had come to terms with his nature long ago, it was up to everyone else to catch up. 

 

Still, as he drifted into to some semblance of sleep, he found that he could not get Shizuo out of his mind. What would it have been like if they’d been friends, he wondered, nuzzling further into his duvet. It wasn't like he wanted to be friends, it wasn't like he cared - or was it? Shizuo was probably the person who knew the most about him, who saw him for what he was. Izaya wasn't the most sociable of creatures. It had been a long time since he’d seen the blond but he imagined that he would be the same as ever, with bloodied knuckles and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. If he saw Izaya, he’d grit his teeth and rip something from the ground and the games would begin again, as they always did. As they always would. The brunet swallowed thickly, ignoring whatever feeling was making his stomach twist uncomfortably. Was that guilt, or lust, perhaps - Izaya didn't know. The slither of feeling was enough to make him decide to visit ikebukuro the following week. He had some clients to meet, so dropping in to see Shizuo wouldn't be too out of the way. He might even get an amusing fight out of the monster if he provoked him a little, though more likely Shizuo would be the one doing the provoking. With a sigh, he rolled onto his back again and scowled at his inability to fall asleep peacefully anymore. 

 

Never mind, he didn’t like sleeping anyway. 

  
  



End file.
